Fabrics from Nature

Do not overlook the nursery prints at your fabric stores. One hundred percent cotton, these are soft and very sewable for adult clothing. The children love to look at skirts of their mothers and grandmothers, as they sit and read to them. This one is a mock-patchwork piece, which is quite expensive, so I got only a strip of it to add as a border to a dress.

The fabric of roses you see on the left, was very affordable, at less than two dollars a yard, so I got enough for dresses for adults and children.  The nursery print on the right, has all kinds of co-ordinating fabrics, such as the stripes and the calico prints.

If you can see it, there is a strip on the edge of the fabric, there in the middle, which contains dots of color. I call this the color bar, and I use it to match fabrics that I want to coordinate with the main piece. Just clip it and put it in your purse, along with a snip of the main print, and take it when you are shopping for other things, like home decor, or shoes or hair clips, or whatever it is you need to match. That color bar contains all the colors that it took to make that particular print.

This was the morning's inspiration for sewing with nature: a multi-colored morning glory bush that is climbing its way to the roof, covering an old, unsightly pipe,

and a cute little fellow hiding behind the bush. I have been told by dedicated vegetable gardeners that these creatures are not "cute" if you are trying to grow food for your family and they are eating it up. We left an outside row of string beans for them and they never bothered the main garden. I guess they were too full.  He just sat there so still ad let me take his picture.

Here is why I believe Wal-Mart should re-stock their fabric departments or keep the fabric departments:

When Sam Walton created the first Wal-Marts, he did it for the country people so they would not have to drive a long way to get a pair of shoes, a toothbrush and a hammer or a package washcloths.  He wanted to be able to get it all from the same store. He began his first small stores in country areas, and they were a big success, and included fabrics and patterns and notions.  From these profits he built even more stores in more country areas. The country people made his stores successful. 

His profits attracted the larger cities and his stores were soon established in those places, too, but it was built on the loyalty and business of the country folks who shopped those smaller Wal-Marts.

Now it only stands to reason that if someone is going to make a curtain, she will then buy a curtain rod on the way out of the  store. If she is going to make a dress, she may stop by the shoe department and get a pair of matching shoes. If she is going to sew a bathroom ensemble,, she will stop by the bathroom accessories and pick up some matching towels. By the way, the color families in WalMart all seem to cooridinate--from the candles to the lampshades to the rugs. So, a seamstress will want other things in the same store. Or, she may just notice there is a can of peanuts or a jar of olive oil on sale, on her way up to the cash register, and buy that, too. So, Wal Mart stands to profit by keeping its fabric.

Just the other day I was talking to one of the men that cuts the fabric in my area at a Wal Mart. He said that I would not believe how many people came all across the nation from the furtherest coast, to buy fabric. He had spent the morning cutting 10 yard pieces for a woman from Dallas, Texas, and 7 yard pieces for a woman in New Orleans.  I think if WalMart execs pay attention, they will find there is a tremendous surge in fabric sales at their left-coast stores, but it is ridiculous that these people are so deprived of their local fabric stores.  I have friends in tiny country towns in Texas and Oklahoma who say it is not as much pleasure to shop at WalMart since they took away their fabric department.  They now have to drive 30 or 40 miles to a fabric store, and cannot buy tea or flour in the same store, or toothpaste.

So, they shot themselves in the foot when they did this. It was these people who built the WalMart success, and now these people for whom Sam Walton built WalMart stores, are again left trying to find a hammer and a hairbrush and fabric by travellling 30 miles.  His descendents that have taken over the stores, need to understand people. I know it is a business, and it is about money, but if you care about people, your business will be assured.

Wal-Mart, please bring back your fabric department.

I recommend this book:  "Sam Walton, Made in America--My Story" by Sam Walton.

He writes: 

"Competition is good for business.

"Why do I drive a pick-up truck?  How am I supposed to haul my dogs in a Rolls-Royce?

"  Family...must believe in the bedrock values of hard work, honesty, neighborliness and thrift."